JIM COLYER BIO

Read about my life...Jim Colyer

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

JIM COLYER BIO

I was born in Louisville, Kentucky on December 29, 1945. The famous people with whom I share a birthday are Mary Tyler Moore and Andrew Johnson, the only President other than Bill Clinton to be impeached. I grew up about 15 miles east of Louisville in Middletown. School began for me in the fall of 1952. I hated school, everything about it. My first grade teacher grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me because I tried to work a puzzle which was too hard for me without first asking. She was a dominatrix. She had two huge dogs which she prized. Maybe that is why I hate dogs to this day. Anyway, I went through grade school and high school without opening my mouth. I sat and waited for the bell to ring at 3 o'clock so I could go home and listen to rock & roll records on my little turntable. I bought Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis. Only in my senior year did I find a means of expressing myself in public. It was 1964, the year of The Beatles. I latched on to The Beatles. I looked in the mirror and saw John Lennon. If I had no talent and was too lazy to work, at least I could grow my hair. My hair became my vocation. I sat up half the night trying to write songs. My mother pulled me out of bed each morning by my arm. She was determined that I would graduate from high school. I strolled through commencement like a zombie in that stupid cap and gown. The cap crushed my Beatle hairdo. Thank God it was over! Little did I know, it was only beginning! President John Kennedy was assassinated during my senior year of high school. It set off a tumultuous chain of events that took 13 years to run its course. The Vietnam War, race riots, illegal drugs, religious fanaticism, women's liberation, homosexuality and the political corruption of Watergate piled wave upon wave. I plowed through my 20s. I got an Associate degree from Lindsey Wilson College in central Kentucky in 1967. I was majoring in English. For the first time, I was taking an interest in literature. I was reading novels and grappling with European history. I thirsted for knowledge. I was eligible for the draft. Like other young men my age, I was confused about Vietnam. The war made no sense. Nor did the draft. We were told we were in Vietnam to contain Communism. I had trouble understanding what a Communist was. No man could look at another man and recognize him as a Communist. The isolated position of Vietnam was a problem. It lay behind the Philippines on the map. It did not jut out like the Korean penninsula. It was hard to get to, hard to defend. The draft was hard to justify. Something in me was saying no man had the right to take another man off the street and put him in a war against his will. Nevertheless, the draft was real. You went when you were called or risked the chance of being sent to prison. After getting a third year of college as an English major, my draft papers came. My education was without direction, and I went into the Army in October, 1969. I took basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky. After further training in radio school, I received orders for Germany. I remember standing in formation and looking at those orders. Imagine my relief! By 1969-70, most of America had turned against the war. Richard Nixon was slowly pulling troops out. Vietnam was becoming something people wanted to forget. I set off for Germany. I had studied German for two semesters. I knew a few words, that was all. Once in Frankfurt, I readily found the prostitutes spoke fluent English. I avoided them. I was still thinking of the girl I left behind. I knew it was over but consoled myself with false hope. I did not like Germany. It was dark and depressing. The buildings were drab. It was like going back to the Middle Ages. I ended up in a nuclear platoon. It was over my head. I drank too much German beer. It was potent stuff. By the time I was discharged from the Army, America had changed. Hippie life had become a norm with young people. A grass roots religious movement was sweeping the country. Zealots were called Jesus Freaks. Baby boomers searched for answers in the aftermath of war. They looked to Buddhism and different forms of mysticism. Cults flourished. I became involved with a group of Jesus Freaks for awhile in Louisville. We attended a Pentacostal church, spoke in tongues and wrote Gospel songs. "Jesus Paid My Debt" came from that period. To this day, I regard the essense of The New Testament as ultimate reality. In late 1973, I recorded a song called "Long Live Rock & Roll." It was a tribute to what was then 20 years of rock & roll. I pressed 1000 copies in Nashville and mailed them across the country. I would hear from that song. In 1981, I was working for the State of Tennesse in Nashville. The people who had the publishing on "Long Live Rock & Roll" called to tell me Elvis Presley recorded my song before he died and that RCA had released it on an 8-record set called "Elvis Aaron Presley." I was ecstatic. Wasn't this what I had dreamed of? I went to a record shop. I found the vinyl set. I took it home and played it. I was disappointed. It was my title, and I was credited as the writer, but it was not my song. It was hard to say what it was. The band was jamming and Elvis was moaning. My dad said it was my song. I knew it was not. We argued. It makes a funny story today but it was all irrelevant to the fact that making a record gave me new hope after the Vietnam era. I felt like I could do things again. What next? I decided to finish college with help from the GI Bill. I had a plan. I had the idea of being a librarian because I had read a variety of books by this time and wanted to be around books. It did not occur to me that I did not have the temperament of a librarian. I was a bull in a china closet. I felt like I had to do something. I picked up a Bachelor's Degree in English from Union College in Barbourville, Kentucky. Almost all of my courses were independent. I would write papers and bring them in. I took courses in Greek drama, the British Romantic poets and Shakespeare. I was out of my mind but graduated and moved to Nashville to get a Master's Degree in Library Science from Peabody College. Peabody is part of Vanderbilt University today. I am living in an apartment complex at Vanderbilt as I type, nearly 30 years later. It is hard not to believe in full circles. I got my degree and took a library job at Castle Heights Military Academy in Lebanon, Tennessee, 30 miles east of Nashville off Interstate 40. It was a high school. For someone who hated school, I could not get enough of it. I was in my early 30s. Working with teenagers gave me a sense of responsibility. I stopped drinking and tried to hold myself as an example for young people. I put on the same uniform I wore in the Army several years earlier. It was not easy. I was neither a soldier nor librarian by nature. These were things I was caught up in from my youth. My second year at Castle Heights, the songwriter in me came out. I put together a band (if you can call it that) from among the students. We recorded an album with a friend of mine named Bill Davis. I met Bill while attending Peabody. He was a music student with ambitions of writing serious music. He would always make quotation signs with his fingers when he talked about "serious music." Our album was centered around a song I wrote called "Phoenix." We called the album "Phoenix Rising." I was fascinated with the idea of resurrection, the idea of rising from one's own ashes. I liked comebacks. Comeback songs became a category within my catalog. I came to suspicion I may be knocking myself down so I could have the opportunity of making still another comeback. The student album put me closer to the students than the faculty and by April, 1978, I found a pink slip in my mail. I could no longer do the military thing. I was 32. Jimmy Carter was President. Times were good, and disco music was on fire. ABBA was on the radio with "Dancing Queen." The Bee Gees answered with "Night Fever." I wanted a girl friend. I wanted to buy a house. I wanted to get married. I bought a house in Lebanon and moved in by myself. In October, 1978, I took another library job (God! I was not cut out to be a librarian!), this time with the State of Tennessee in Nashville. Destiny stepped in! While at Castle Heights, I fell in love or thought I fell in love with the wife of a faculty member. We paired off every night in the cafeteria. We gazed dreamily into each other's eyes and confided our feelings of alienation. "We are under siege." she said. Her hair was dark, her eyes were blue and her skin was seductively pale. She reminded me of Madame Bovary from Gustav Flaubert's novel, the tragic, lonely wife waiting for some mystery lover to wisk her off to a higher plane. I wanted to. I thought it was going to happen. I contemplated it for two years. There was one giant obstacle. She had two young boys. I did not have it in me to take someone else's kids. I waffled too long. The spell broke. I bought a house in Lebanon and lay in bed at night for 10 months hurting over this woman. Her husband finally told me she had a boy friend, a disc jockey. There would be a divorce, but she was not moving in with me. The pain like a knife. I vowed that if I ever became enamored with another married woman, I would strike like lightning. I did not have to wait long. I went to work at The Tennessee State Library. I was the Serials Librarian. My assistant sat behind me at her desk. This was Karen. I had no way of knowing that Karen was the future mother of my son. We talked and got to know each other quickly. Karen was married to a man who worked on another floor of the library. It was the same old story, another unhappy wife. She told me that the week before she loaded her car and drove around the block only to return home because she had nowhere to go. Karen wanted to buy a house. Her husband wanted to drink his money up and run off to Florida everytime they got a vacation. Karen wanted a baby. Her husband did not want a baby because he had a child by a previous marriage. Karen and I sat side by side, checking in serials. She tried to teach me the job. The chemistry was strong. We sat rubbing our legs together. Other library employees noticed. Ten days after I took the job, Karen was in my bed in Lebanon. We set up a pattern of Thursday nights. Karen told her husband she was selling Avon. She would drive the 32 miles from Nashville to be with me. One night, we met on a street corner next to the library to go to a movie. A fellow employee drove by in his car. We were sure he saw us. We saw a Woody Allen movie that night called "Interiors," one of his worst. Things came to a head. I told Karen to leave her husband and move in with me. I was 32. I had a house and an income. I promised her we would have a baby. She was unsure. We lay on the floor of my living room after sex. Karen cried and asked me to give her six months to think about it. Her mascara ran. I laughed and told her she looked like Alice Cooper. Six months was too long. I insisted she move in with me right away. She said she would do it after Thanksgiving. Karen spent Thanksgiving with her husband and the detested in-laws. She remembered thinking, "This is the last time." Karen's daddy rented a U-Haul and moved her furniture and belongings to my house the next day while her husband was at work. It was Friday. Karen and I fell asleep in each other's arms that night. It would be that way for some time. We had done the right thing. God and destiny were on our side! A clash with Karen's husband was inevitable. He was waiting for us Monday morning, pacing on the sidewalk outside the library. He and I would butt heads over the next few weeks. The climax came in the lobby of the library. We went after each other. He was bigger. I was more determined. I had him by the hair with his head down. He shook like a bull. I was a matador. We inched toward the stairwell. A wrong move, and we would have gone over. I heard a bellowing voice. "What in the hell is going on here?" We looked up. It was the head librarian, a crusty, cigarette-smoking dyke. Behind her, I saw library employees peeking from the main doors, necks stretching to see the fight. It was over. I was given two weeks notice. Fistacuffs were not expected from library-types. Karen and I left together, and I never used my degree again. I had been through Las Vegas the previous summer. I got the idea of finding work in Vegas. Karen and I loaded my Ford Maverick and left for Las Vegas on Flag Day, June 14, 1979. We drove west on Interstate 40. A couple of nights in motels, and we found ourselves cruising down Las Vegas Boulevard. We rented an apartment and looked for work. It was useless, at least for me. The trip gradually turned into a tour of the American west. After a month in Las Vegas, we retreated back to Nashville. Karen got her divorce. It took a year because her idiot husband contested it. He sued me for "alienation of affection." I could not believe a lawyer would take such a rediculous case. He found one stupid enough to take it. Karen and I were married in April, 1980. I came in one morning from working that night at the U.S. Post Office. Karen informed me it was time to get married. I was going to my wedding in jeans. She made me change into a pair of slacks. We drove to the courthouse in Lebanon. We were married by a woman. I tipped her $20. One picture was taken of Karen and myself kissing. It was enough. I felt no different now that we were married than I did when we were living together. These were years of travel, my 30s. Karen and I were loose on the country. We were fascinated with great places. Suddenly, we had the freedom to go to places we had heard about all our lives. The photo galleries are filled with pictures. Karen took the pictures. I wrote the papers. After awhile, I had that full circle feeling. I found myself repeating. As prices went up, we got less out of it. Karen and I began watching "Dallas" in the autumn of 1979. It sounds crazy but when J.R. and Sue Ellen became parents on the show, that was when I realized I was going to become a father. I had never thought it possible before. I believed Karen and I would be parents. I also believed we would have a boy, which is what she wanted. I had built up a collection of books on human sexuality. I must have had 20. I studied diagrams of the female reproductive organs. I learned about ovaries, Fallopian tubes and the uterus. I visualized an ovum working its way through the tubes to become fertilized by a single male sperm cell, mine. I could do it! Karen removed her IUD (Intra-Uterine Device). She started trying to get pregnant. It seems like things often go awry and it takes a couple of times to get them right. That is how it was. Karen was pregnant by late 1982. In March, 1983, she called me where I was working as a printer for the State of Tennessee. She was at the doctor's. She had a miscarriage. I recall walking through the streets of downtown Nashville with tears in my eyes. That night, Karen and I hugged in the kitchen. I said we would try again. It did not take long. Karen must have gotten pregnant the second time around June 11, 1983. Michael Brandon Colyer was born 9 months later on March 11, 1984. As it turned out, the pregnancies were so close that only one of the two babies could be born. This is a hard thing to understand and harder to explain. I accepted it as God's will. I came to feel that God brought me to Nashville for the purpose of being Michael's father. Years later, I would feel He brought me back to Nashville to help my son. Karen and I divorced, and I ended up living in my parents' basement in Louisville. But I lived with Michael over a year, long enough to establish a permanent relationship. He never forgot me. I turned 40 in my parents' basement. It seemed my life was over. I would be in the basement 12 years, 1985-1997. We perceive time differently after 40. It becomes a running facet. Days, months and years slip by with little meaning. We approach 50. We feel our strength ebb and watch ourselves turn gray in the mirror. We depise the music of the day and have no interest in television. We long for our youth and are envious of the younger generation. "I must go on." I wrote that line, New Year's Eve, 1985. Everything I have done since has grown from that seed. Michael came first. I was virtually broke but started going to Michael when I could afford it. There was no pattern. I went to Nashville when something inside me told me the time was right. I would either get a motel in Nashville and do things with Michael and Karen or bring Michael back to Louisville. My parents often went with me. I would have been on the street without them in those years. So would have Karen. Her parents built an apartment on to their house for her and Michael. I appreciate that. The basement years passed. I read books and wrote papers. I wrote a book about ABBA. I watched movies on home video. I spent time in Las Vegas and Sweden. Bill Clinton was elected President. He was reelected. It was 1997, and there was a 70s revival. I had an environmental pop song called Save The Planet. I advertized for a female vocalist in a local music paper. A lady in southern Indiana answered my ad. I went to her house, and we made a tape of my song in her living room. I still believe in that song and would like to do it justice someday. Hard Rock Cafe uses Save The Planet as their slogan. If I record the song again, I may promote it through their merchanise shops. For such a song to gain acceptance, I feel we need to be in a liberal era. A Republican administration and a war on terror are not a favorable climate. John Kerry has not ruled out a second Presidential campaign in 2008. Hopefully, things will return to normal. I ended up back in Nashville in July, 1997 in an apartment on Music Row. It happened quickly. I began writing songs like crazy, girl songs. It was the Shania Twain era. In retrospect, it seemed like destiny. I came to feel that God brought me back to Nashville to help my son. Michael was 13, and it was good for me to be close so I could get to him when he needed me. We began having meals together and seeing movies. We talked about life, school, girls and the future. We had many a conversation while driving in the Nissan truck I bought at Hippodrome on Broadway. I started singing my songs on public access TV. It kept the ball rolling. I was recording girl singers with Doc Dockery in Indiana and Kenny Royster in Nashville. My biggest problem was trying not to fall in love with my current singer whoever she was. Songs poured out of me: All Roads Lead To You, I'm The One, Hard Earned Love, Half Crazy Half The Time, Rough Night, Heartbreaker, Name, Number & Message, Merry Christmas. I was a genius in my own mind as the 20th century faded into the 21st. I did karaoke. I sang the songs of the big 4: Elvis Presley, The Beatles, ABBA & Shania Twain. Being older, it did not bother me to get up and sing a Shania song. I was writing for women anyway. I tried not to be affected by 911. There was no way not to be. It touched us all. I voted for John Kerry in 2004 and will vote for him again should he decide to run in 2008. Meanwhile, George Bush is the president. I have learned one thing for sure, to keep an eye on the future. I took Michael to Florida while he was in high school. I want him to see the west now that he is in college. I am thinking Las Vegas, The Grand Canyon and the Sequoias of California. We need to make plans. I am helping my son. Muscially, I am working my best stuff. I am pitching Hard Earned Love, All Roads Lead To You, Save The Planet & Merry Christmas. Our best days are ahead.Contact: jim@jimcolyer.com